


Fire Away

by lymricks



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:58:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Afghanistan, they call him Titanium Tim. There are a few close calls, but he only gets shot twice. Once as a soldier, and once because Raylan Givens is an asshole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norgbelulah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/gifts).



> Ok, so, basically I listened to the [David Guetta](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg) song 15,000 times and then forgot what a metaphor is and took it _really literally_.
> 
> Prompt: [Tim Gutterson - Fire away, fire away](http://nvrleaveharlan.livejournal.com/12791.html?thread=159223#t159223)

It’s supposed to be an easy mission. A quiet Sunday morning jaunt through the woods. Donald Robbins is 82 years old, and wanted for bond forging and a host of not-particularly malicious crimes. Art had sent Tim and Raylan off to Harlan County with a nonchalant wave. “Practically a vacation,” he’d drawled as he handed them the folder. “No reason to whine at me. You can take your time bringing him back. Enjoy the weather.” Tim certainly isn’t enjoying the weather, because he’s lying on the dirt in Harlan, bleeding, and it’s all Raylan’s goddamn fault. 

Tim has made a long and successful career, first as a soldier, and now as a marshal, out of not getting shot. So it strikes him as particularly unfair that on this lovely Sunday afternoon, he’s going to die in the dirt in some god-forsaken holler (and he forgives himself the redundancy of _god forsaken_ as an adjective for _holler_ , on account of the dying part) all because Raylan Givens decided to get concerned, and gave away his position to an enemy sniper. 

Tim closes his eyes because the sight of Harlan’s trees in late October is making him nauseous. That could also be the bullet hole, but Tim’s pretty convinced it’s the trees. They’re a vivid display of fall, and the air is chilly. It’d be something beautiful, but it reminds him of the fact that he’s in a _holler_ in _Harlan_. It’s nearly Halloween, and Tim is lying in the leaves like he had when he was younger, but this time he isn’t young--well, he is, but he’s not young like he was.

“Tim?” Raylan’s voice sounds too loud and far away at the same time.

“Howdy,” Tim says, pleasantly surprised to hear that his voice still works. 

“I told you to shoot the bast—what are you doing?”

“I appear to have fallen out of the tree.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

Tim’s eyes are closed, but he pictures the hand Raylan runs through his hair in exasperation, and it’s nearly as good as seeing the real thing. He can hear Raylan coming closer now. Tim knows his position well, knows the cover, knows exactly how many footsteps it’ll be before Raylan finally turns the corner and sees him. _Five, four, three, two--_ “Jesus _Christ_ ,” Raylan repeats. “Did you fall on a goddamn bullet?”

“No,” Tim answers, “The bullet pushed me out of the tree.”

“Of course,” Raylan says, and Tim opens his eyes as Raylan sits down next to him. 

“Raylan, I think I need a medic.”

“Ok,” Raylan answers, a hand pushing up Tim’s shirt. “I’m calling for an ambulance right now, lemme see what happened. How’d they find you? Hey, I’m gonna need you to keep chattin’ me up, all right?”

Tim nods, “Sure—and you looked at me. When the guy said he had a sniper of his own. So they knew where I was, and then the guy’s sniper shot me.”

“Shit.”

“Was kinda stupid, yeah.”

Raylan’s got a hand under his neck now, “Stay with me,” Raylan says, and Tim licks his lips. 

“Where’s my rifle?”

“Don’t you worry about that, right now.” 

“Where’s the fugitive—uh, Robbins?”

“Don’t you worry about that either.”

“The fuck are you doing to my stomach Raylan? That _hurts_.”

“That would be the bullet, Tim, not me.”

“Oh.” 

Raylan’s peering down at him, and he keeps shaking Tim, trying to keep him awake. Tim wants to tell him that it feels kind of good to be so tired. He closes his eyes, and Raylan shakes him. “Ambulance is on the way, ok?”

“I’m gonna be honest with you Raylan. I don’t think I’m gonna stick around for the ambulance. Flashin’ lights make me jumpy.” Raylan’s hand is in Tim’s hair now, and Tim grimaces. He’s going to be covered in blood if Raylan keeps touching the bullet hole and then touching the rest of Tim.

“Tim,” Raylan says, “Stay with me.” 

Tim breathes through his nose, “It’s funny,” he says, slowly, because there are things he doesn’t say out loud, except he’s _dying_ , so he can make an exception, maybe, just this once. “I guess some part of me always thought I’d die a fuckin’ hero.” He’d cussed more, back when he was standing on someone else’s soil than he does now that’s he back home. He slips back into the habit, and it feels like sliding on an old pair of boots or jeans, the kind he loved but hadn’t worn in years because of holes or memories.

Sometimes, Tim worries that he’ll wake up and Kentucky will be a dream, sometimes he worries that Kentucky is the only reality he’s got, and sometimes he worries that he’ll hit a bump in the road and find himself back in a desert, in a city, in another fucking world. He’s not dying a hero, but as the blood leaks out of his body, he’s glad to note that he knows exactly where he is. He’s not delirious or shaken, he’s just right goddamn there, under the flag of burnt red leaves and a blue Kentucky sky. Raylan’s touching him with October cold fingers that feel good on Tim’s hot skin. The whole dying thing doesn’t seem so bad, really.

Raylan snorts, “Never figured you for the type,” he says, and Tim just blinks up at him. Raylan holds his gaze, and in the distance, Tim can hear a helicopter. 

“Thought you said you called an ambulance.”

But Tim doesn’t like flashing lights, so he lets his eyes close and doesn’t bother sticking around to find out.

~

He wakes up not dead. 

It’s not exactly a disappointment, but it’s a little bit disconcerting. He’d made his peace with his gods and devils, to the extent that he has them, so when he opens his eyes and finds himself lying in a hospital bed, he’s less pleased about it than he’d thought he’d be. There’s a tiredness that comes when you know you’re about to die, a deep sort of aching sleepiness that you ease into—or, well, one that eases you into what comes next. When Tim opens his eyes, he wakes up not dead, and it’s like climbing out of the mud, or waking up from the worst hangover ever.

Of course, that could be the bullet hole, but Tim’s pretty sure it has something to do with almost dying. 

His limbs feel heavy and unfamiliar. There’s a moment where he thinks _paralyzed_ , but then the rational part of his brain kicks in and he wiggles his fingers and toes with no small amount of satisfaction. He’s warming up to the idea of not being dead quickly, and he turns his head to the side, cracking his neck and taking in his surroundings. 

Raylan’s there, which is almost more of a surprise than not being dead. 

The strangest thing about it, though, is how _little_ Raylan looks inside the hospital. Tim’s the one with the bullet hole—which he’ll recover from just fine, he’s sure—but it’s Raylan who looks haggard. He’s obviously asleep, but he’s moving his fingers in the same irritatingly idle way he does when he’s awake. Usually it adds to the feeling of grandeur that Raylan gives off. Rachel calls it swagger, which is a concise way of saying that Raylan’s got the kind of personality that fills up a room and spills out of windows like lights on the front law. Tim’s not used to the way Raylan’s existence seems to stop right where his body does. The blanket that someone had thrown over him has the same effect as blackout shades or suffocating a flame. Raylan’s whole self, for the first time that Tim’s known him, is impossibly, perfectly contained in that hospital chair.

“Raylan,” Tim says. “Raylan. Hey—Raylan. Wake the fuck up.” He reaches out a hand and shoves his fingers against Raylan’s knee. The movement jars his stomach, and he sucks in a sharp breath at the pain. 

He’d expected Raylan to startle awake, maybe jump up and start firing his weapon. It’s the kind of thing Tim’s gotten used to with Raylan around. Instead, Raylan wakes slowly and stares at Tim for two whole and creepy minutes, blinking like he doesn’t remember who or where he is. Tim waits it out and stares right back. He’s silent until he sees awareness dawn more fully on Raylan’s face.

“You know,” Tim says, “For the asshole who got me shot, you sure look comfy in that chair.” 

“You’re a big boy,” Raylan answers, probably looking a little more relieved than Tim thinks he wants to. “You’ll heal up jus’ fine. You’re used to this sort of thing, I’m sure.”

“How many times d’you think I’ve been shot?” Tim asks, resting a hand on his stomach and probing sore skin cautiously with his fingertips. He winces almost immediately, and lets his hand fall back down at his side.

Raylan’s looking at him curiously, but Tim doesn’t say anything, he just waits for the answer. Raylan grins at him then, one of those bright and blinding smiles, and mimes counting on the fingers of his left hand. With each finger he holds up, he fires a shot from his right hand, his mouth making the sound, his fingers making the weapon. The whole thing, Tim thinks, is rather insensitive, and characteristic, too, of Raylan, who’s always fought in a different kind of war. It doesn’t bother Tim, though, not really. There are scars, and then there are _scars_. He might spend the rest of his life trying to forget the way sand felt when it was cemented into his boots, but those are the kind of details that keep him up some nights, not this. Raylan being an asshole is familiar, and it’s comforting in the soft white of the hospital. Raylan stops his little charade when he runs out of fingers. Says “Five.”

Tim shakes his head.

“Six. Four. Ten. Eight. Twenty-seven and a half.”

“Twice.” Tim cuts Raylan off before he gets too adventurous in his numbers. Raylan opens his mouth and Tim holds up a hand, “Including this one.”

“No shit.”

“Shit,” Tim answers. 

“You’re a soldier, and you only been shot twice? And once not even _as_ a soldier?”

“What I think you’re tryin’ to say, Raylan, is, ‘and once because I--Raylan Givens--am an asshole.’”

Raylan barely hides his smirk, “Isn’t that what I said?”

Tim groans, trying to sound as put-upon as humanly possible, and settles back against his pillows. It’s futile, of course, the starched white cotton of the hospital sheets always makes him itchy. “I’ve come close,” Tim says finally, “More than twice. But I only been shot twice.” 

Raylan splays back in his chair, his legs kicked way the fuck out in front of him, and tips his head back like he’s going to sleep. He doesn’t have the hat on--it’s resting on Tim’s end table. The hospital around them is as quiet as a hospital gets, and the pull around Raylan’s eyes, combined with the empty darkness of the bit of sky he can see outside his window convince Tim it’s not exactly visiting hours. “What time is it?” Tim asks. 

“Oh, ‘bout 4:10 in the mornin’. Can’t you read the clock?”

Tim flips Raylan off. “I’m not tired.”

Raylan’s eyes were closed, but he opens them now. “I suppose that means I’m not tired, either.”

“Aw Raylan, that’s so sweet of you, stayin’ up with me after gettin’ me shot. I can’t imagine why Miami didn’t want to keep you around.” 

It’s Raylan’s turn to flip Tim off. “Since you’re keepin’ me up,” Raylan says through a yawn, “Why don’t you tell me how you managed to avoid gettin’ shot in a war.” 

“Help me sit up, first,” Tim shoots back, trying to get his hands at a good angle to support his weight without pulling at the hole in his stomach.

“The nurses said--”

“Raylan.”

This time, it’s Raylan who sighs in the put-upon fashion, and Tim thinks that it’s sort of eerie, the way they echo each other. Raylan puts a hand under Tim’s back, and with a small amount of wiggling and no small amount of cursing, they get Tim sitting up in bed.

“All right, oh wise veteran,” Raylan says--not mean, or mocking, just very Raylan. He takes a while to say ‘veteran.’ When Raylan says it, it’s a thousand syllables and a million miles long, choppy and broken up, a little bit affectionate. Raylan’s splayed out in his chiar, all long limbs and wide grins. He reminds Tim of a teenager sometimes, and other times of an old man. “Tell me your war stories.”

“The thing is,” Tim says, his voice quieter than it had been a second ago. "The thing is—at the time, nothin makes much sense, so when it's over you sort of have to make a quilt out of what everyone else remembers. If I'm gonna tell you about the only other time I been shot, I gotta start at the beginnin’. Back when I was a freaky fucking sniper. Back before I'd earned myself a place.” He pauses, “Sure you wanna hear this bullshit? I’ll let you go to sleep.”

“Well now you’re sittin’ up,” Raylan answers lightly, “And you’re a heavy son of a bitch so get talkin’.”

Tim smiles. “I’ll start with the tangible details.”

~

The first moment will always be this one: on a plane, on the tarmac, on the sand, _on the ground, get down, everybody right now._

Their first day in Afghanistan is spent on their bellies. It’s not the most optimistic start to fighting a war, but it’s definitely a poetic one. 

Tim will nurse a healthy hatred for sand for the rest of his life, but he doesn’t have time to think much more than _ugh_ as it invades his uniform and his body, digs deep into his skin, nestles in the beds of his nails, and coats his hair. 

“Some assholes get stationed in goddamn Europe,” says a faceless voice next to him, and Tim grunts, because he’s. Well. Never really intended to be one of the guys. But here he is, on his very first day, and he’s part of something, at least. Tim grunts, but then he grins. He bumps his shoulder against this faceless man.

Bullets whistle through the air, and everything sounds like it’s exploding. The first day isn’t a vacation, but it’s not a nightmare either. Not yet. Eventually, the sounds of bullets stop. Tim stays down for a beat, then for two, and slowly they all rise together. The jerky up/down movements each man makes as he straightens up, then crouches down like something’s about to hit him remind Tim, disconcertingly, of whack-a-moles. He takes a steadying breath, falls into place.

He learns to hate the rocks more than he hates the sand, although he hates the rocks less vehemently. They make solid earth slide under his feet, and every step they take down the side of this goddamn hill feels treacherous. It would be horrible to be the man who falls. Just thinking about it makes a hot sense of shame rise up on the back of Tim’s neck. 

He’s thinking about it, so of course it happens. His foot kicks out from under him, the rock that had seemed for an instant to be solid underneath his heel skitters away down the side of the mountain. He doesn’t have a chance to get his balance back. He just goes down hard.

His body makes a louder sound than he thinks it should have. Tim’s lying on his back, blinking up at the sky and trying to figure out how the hell he’s supposed to look at the men he’s with, when someone’s head pokes into his vision. “Jesus,” the head says, “Did you guys _see that_? Check this motherfucker out.”

A hand replaces the head, and Tim grabs it without thinking. He’s hauled to his feet and looking around. The guys are all staring at the rock and dirt outcrop that they’d been marching next to for the last three hours. Right where Tim’s skull had been is a perfect, round hole. “That was a fucking sniper shot!” someone says, “You lucky son of a _bitch_ , Gutterson.”

Tim blinks at the bullet hole for a second, then says, “Shouldn’t we be worried about what happened to the sniper?”

Everyone goes quiet and still for a second, which is just about the stupidest thing Tim’s ever seen. Another bullet embeds itself into the cliff face, this one close enough that Tim can feel it whistle past. He can also hear it though. They say you don’t hear the bullet that gets you. 

There are a few chaotic moments; everybody is talking loudly, not saying much, as they scramble for cover. Tim grabs his rifle, sets his scope. Once he finds the enemy sniper who’s failed to kill him twice, it’s barely a heartbeat before the guy’s dead. Tim’s first kill in Afghanistan.

“Shot you down,” someone says, bumping his shoulder, “but you got the fuck up. Shit. I guess they didn’t even shoot you, really. And they missed the second time, too! Man.”

Tim’s hands don’t shake. He’s too well trained for that. He’s looking at the spot where the sniper had been, and then he’s looking down at the rock that had skittered away under his weight. A day in Afghanistan, and a rock just saved his life. A day in Afghanistan, and already he’s killed a man.

For the rest of the eight-hour march, and most of the time it takes to set up for the night, it’s all the rest of his unit can talk about. They tell the story to each other, filling every possible lull in conversation with awed chatter.

“The lucky son of a _bitch_ ,” they keep saying. “The lucky motherfucker.” 

~

Eventually, he’s been there long enough that the sand is a mild irritant, no worse than waiting an extra fifteen minutes for a bus in the morning, or the mosquitoes that used to bite him while he walked with his father.

In Kentucky, there were irritants just like this, and so he forgets. He doesn’t forget the sand; he just forgets what his life was before there was sand in it. Tim’s been here for long enough now, that this world is something that he’s begun to understand.

At night, he lies on his back and stares up at the stars when he’s supposed to be sleeping. He’s been here long enough, now, to give names to them. Lost names. Names that belonged to people who just—aren’t, anymore. _Dunning, Lopez, Hsu, Brillig, Muh._ Sometimes it seems like every night he adds a new name. Sometimes it seems he adds a new name every hour.

It has been a bad week.

That’s a fact. A statement of the truth. If he said it to a crowd on the street, they would understand. _A bad week_ , they would nod. Tim would be speaking their language.

But a bad week doesn’t cover it—doesn’t even lie in the same bed as it. Because there isn’t a phrase that can encompass the nothingness of the _everything_ in this place. Tim’s not a literary man, but he learns to speak in dichotomies. The contrasts help explain away the days that never seem to end, help talk down nights where no one—not one man in Tim’s unit—has got a goddamn thing to lose.

It has been a bad week, and they are all having one of those nights.

They’re stationed in a valley between two hills. The craggy rocks seem to spread out for infinity, broken only by empty patches of dirt and sand, or the occasional half-dead clump of green. It’s a stagnant landscape, and like algae on the top of pond water, the soldiers have no breeze to stir them to action, only the silence of the area and the threat of a patrol. 

The goal, the eventual, ultimate goal, is a nearby village. Most of the men don’t know why _that_ village, but Tim does. His rifle is the reason. 

He feels bruised, an all over sort of rawness that he can’t shake. The kid next to him, his watch buddy for the night, has the kind of eyes just waiting to be hollowed out, the kind of smile that’s supposed to be broken. Tim’s been here long enough to recognize that type. Tim’ll probably be the reason for the hollowing out, just like he’s the reason they’re going to that village. Because he’s a good goddamn shot.

By proxy, he supposes, that means he’s the reason they’re stationed in this fucking valley that seems like it will never end, even though its borders are obvious—dark slopes that reach toward newly named stars. 

After too long a waste of time that could be spent sleeping, Tim finally closes his eyes and tries to rest. It works, for a time, but he’s jarred awake by the kid next to him, gripping his shoulder, those big northern eyes opened wide in shock and fear. “Someone is coming,” he hisses, his enunciation cold and clear and educated. 

Tim shifts, his hands on his rifle before he really has to think about it. He rises into a crouch. He waits. 

The shots are loud enough and close enough that Tim thinks his ears are gonna start _fucking_ bleeding Jesus goddamn Christ, and he has to drop down low and pray that someone else in this unit has their shit together because otherwise he’s going home _real_ soon and—

—and the bullets stop coming. Tim hears a strange sound over the rustles he’s come to associate with his unit. They’re getting ready—moving in to help him, but over the sound of that, Tim hears unfamiliar breathing, a frantic _clickclickclick._

The poor bastard’s weapon isn’t working.

Someone else shoots him. Tim’s too busy staring up into the darkness at a shadow that’s breathing—a shadow that knows his life is forfeit. The body falls and Tim falls too, back down into his hole, his forehead lands on his knees. He takes a deep breath. 

“Hey, kid,” he says.

The kid’s a northern boy who speaks like a schoolteacher. He dies in some unimportant valley between some unimpressive mountains in a hole next to Tim. It’s a clean wound. It had been a fast death. Tim accepts a new name to give to the stars, and the next morning they get ready to take the village.

One of the guys stops him, his eyes huge and disbelieving. “Holy shitting fuck,” he says, which is pretty impressive as far as cursing goes. He grabs Tim’s rifle—it very nearly costs him his fingers, and holds it up for Tim to see. “Check that out. How’s that even possible?”

There is the tiniest scratch. A bullet had grazed the rifle and its trajectory had been shifted, saving Tim’s fingers, maybe his life.

“Freaky fuckin’ sniper,” Anders says, staring up at Tim. “Hey, Brick, come check this out. Gutterson’s got someone looking out for him, man.”

“Shiiiiiit,” Brick says, slow and drawn out, half a whistle. “Fucker must be made of goddamn titanium. Now he’s deflecting bullets.”

There are worse nicknames to have, but better ways to get them. It sticks, though. Titanium Tim, they call him, always with a knack for alliteration if rhyming fails. Titanium Tim, they say, motherfucker is _bulletproof_. Fire the fuck away. 

~

Raylan’s looking at him again. He’s been staring on and off for most of the pair of stories, but now he’s really looking. He’s got a strange expression on his face, like he’s not positive what he just heard. He says something quietly, clearly to himself, but Tim’s a good enough lip-reader to catch the word _Crowder_. 

It’s not exactly the reaction Tim had expected, but then again, maybe Raylan doesn’t know what happens in a war. Maybe he’s only just now figuring out that fighting outside of hollers is nothing like fighting in them. There’s not the thrill of espionage and backstabbing, just endless, stagnant moments, punctuated by piss-your-pants terror. Tim might call himself Raylan’s friend, but he’d call Boyd Raylan’s best friend, and maybe Raylan hasn’t figured that out yet, either. It’s not that Raylan’s stupid, that’s not what Tim means. It’s just that, maybe, Raylan’s avoided a certain kind of knowledge because he hasn’t had to know the information. Now he knows, though, and Tim’s voice is tired. 

He sips from a glass of water a nurse had procured some time before he’d woken up and lets the silence stay settled over the room. 

Finally, Raylan speaks, like little kid hearing a bedtime story that he’s only just realized will give him nightmares: “So,” he says, “What happened next?”

“Just one more story,” Tim says, “Before I tell you about the only other time I been shot. This one’s about a girl—”

“Of course it is.” Raylan’s smiling. “Always a girl in a good war story, right?”

“This is more ghost story than war story,” Tim admits. He’s poking at his stomach again, peering under the blankets to stare at the bandages. “And she wasn’t a woman. She’s a girl. A kid.” There’s a woman too, but she’s not—Tim won’t talk about her until he has to, until it’s her turn in the story.

Outside, the sky is starting to glow. Tim prods his bandage. He takes another sip of his water. Raylan doesn’t comment on his tense changes about the girl. Maybe he just doesn’t notice.

“We went to the village because I needed to be there.”

~

It’s going to be his first big kill. Not his first kill, not his first target, but certainly the most interesting out of the ones he’s been assigned so far. The guy’s _important_ , responsible for what boils down to, when Tim loses the military jargon and fancy phrasing, a shitload of death and destruction. Someone important must really like Tim’s shooting. They marched and drove through a whole lot of desert to get Tim here on this particular day. 

“You’ll have three days,” his CO tells him over some illicit hootch, his dark eyes serious. “You make the shot in that window or we’re all royally fucked. You hear me, Gutterson?”

“Yes sir. I don’t miss.”

The man claps him on the shoulder, “I know you don’t. Good man. Wait till camp settles down and then you can go find yourself a nest. Dismissed.”

The guys give him shit about being in trouble, about sucking officer dick, about camaraderie and not keeping secrets, but Tim doesn’t tell anyone what they’re doing in that village.

“Aw c’mon Gutterson,” Brick says, “Fucking kid died for this bullshit last night, and you ain’t gonna tell us what you know?”

Tim stays silent, and eventually they all leave him alone.

When darkness has settled over the camp, and everyone is painfully, obviously, relentlessly aware that Tim has some special shit to do, Tim rises out of his crouch and moves away from the men. He becomes as little of himself as possible—but not little enough that he doesn’t startle when he hears a voice.

“Gutterson,” someone says, and Tim goes completely still.

It’s just Brick, though. He’s supposed to be keeping watch, but instead he’s followed Tim to the outskirts of a village. Tim grimaces. Already he’s failing his objective. “You gotta go,” Tim says, glancing at his friend. Brick is a friend, for all that he’s an asshole who deserves his nickname, he’s a friend. 

“I know, man. You got freaky fuckin’ sniper shit to do.” Brick grins at him and claps a hand on Tim’s shoulder. He squeezes. “Just come back, man, you know? We’re losing lots of guys. Just come back.”

It’s out of character for Brick, but it makes Tim smile. He nods his head, “You got it,” he says, his voice quiet. They must look insane: two soldiers standing silhouetted against a village, practically begging to be shot

Brick’s smile is wry and tired. “Titanium Tim,” he murmurs. “All right, soldier. _Dis_ missed!” It’s an uncanny imitation of the CO. Tim lets the sound of Brick’s footsteps fade away before he heads into the village proper. He’s got his rifle and three days. He will not fail this objective.

The city is a shithole. Wires hang from the poles like cut ribbons, and the street is speckled with debris. Tim’s got the map memorized—it doesn’t take him long to find the nest he needs. His target lives in a small hamlet of undestroyed houses. Real houses. Nice shit, with windows and a patio and something that looks like a garden. Tim climbs up the building across the street and settles down on the roof, stretched out on his belly. 

There’s nothing to do but wait for the sun to rise and the opportunity to shoot. He doesn’t sleep. He’s out here the fuck alone. He spends the first night watching the house—counting the number of times his target gets up in the middle of the night to take a piss. 

When morning comes and fingernails of sunlight gouge bright spots onto Tim’s roof, he shifts his position to find some cover. He gets himself settled, and sights the house again. There’s a little girl, watching him. She’s beautiful for a girl her age, with big dark eyes.

She’s looking right at him.

So Tim spends the first day rolling around on that fucking roof. Every time he finds a new position, she seems to find him. He spends that first day on the rooftop pinned down by the weight of her big brown stare, his heart beating too fast, his palms sweating. She’s just a little thing, but she’s terrifying. Shit your goddamn pants scary, he’ll tell the guys later, like something out of a horror movie. 

But it’s how ordinary she is that terrifies him. She’s a kid in the world like any other kid in the world, like some little brown eyed girl back in Kentucky looking out the window at the birds in their nests. Except, he’s not a bird, and this isn’t a nest, not really, and he’s got a gun.

He sleeps. Restlessly, fitfully. He wakes up too often, looking through his scope to find his target, to search out the girl. With the lights off in the house she isn’t around to look for him. She’s asleep, and Tim draws his focus back to his mission like pulling on a wire to draw in a fish. Slowly, carefully, afraid it’ll break and the catch will get away.

He watches her leave in the morning. She’s with an older woman—a grandmother, maybe, or a nurse, Tim can’t be sure. By the time she’s disappeared around a corner, Tim’s given her a name. He’d known this girl when he was little, Lena, and she’d had big brown eyes too. She used to steal his hat on the playground. He’d been scared of that Lena, so it only seems fitting to name this girl after her. He imagines that she’s going off to school to torment some poor little boys. He imagines that she’s gone to the store. He imagines she’s out for breakfast. 

Alone with his target, Tim makes his focus shift away from Lena. His target doesn’t seem so bad. He jerks off, does some dishes, reads the newspaper. He eats a meal, and when the dog comes up to beg for scraps, he feeds it and scratches it behind the ears. It’s a detail that will always make Tim’s stomach tighten—he’s nice to the dog when no one is around. 

Tim’s only got three days, and he’s halfway through day two. He wants to get this over with. Doesn’t want to shoot the guy while Lena’s in the house. So he takes the shot. 

The thing about a desperate sniper is that he’s nervous. He might not take his time or examine all his variables. He might do something stupid, like take the shot so that a little girl doesn’t have to be in the next room when her father dies, and that decision, that desperation, may give away his position.

It gives away Tim’s position.

He’d made assumptions about ghost towns and wealthy hamlets, and he’s got a gun pressed between his shoulder blades because of it. Tim places his hands flat down on the ground and bites his lip. 

When he turns, he sees a woman. Her eyes are mean, and her hands are steady around the gun. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, looks at his rifle, looks at the house, looks back at Tim. There’s passion on her face, and something else—something angry, and something sad. She fires the gun, and the bullet only just grazes him. She’ll never know that, though, because before Tim’s even had the chance to process _still alive still alive still fucking alive_ she raises the gun again and blows her head into pieces. 

Tim goes down on all fours and throws up, dry heaving and sweating and sobbing. When his stomach finally settles, he hauls himself to his feet, grabs his rifle, and stumbles back the way he came. He radios it in as he walks, _mission a success._ because technically it was. 

Back with his unit, a medic patches up the graze wound. Everyone’s mumbling, making jokes about Titanium Tim who never gets shot, fire away all you fucking want you dirty motherfuckers, and Tim just sits there and waits for the medic to patch him up. He climbs into a humvee.

“We’re Oscar Mike,” someone says, and they roll away from the ville. 

~

He should’ve been dead three times over by the time he actually gets a proper bullet wound. And it’s fucking stupid, the way he gets shot. Well, it’s not stupid in the way that shooting yourself by accident is stupid, it’s just—in the collection of potential ways to be a shot in a war, this one hasn’t ever been on Tim’s radar. 

It’s a crystal clear morning, and they’re hanging in the rear. It’s supposed to be a few days to recuperate from the casualties they’d sustained outside that village. It’s also a chance for Tim to make sure his report is made, and for everyone else in charge to make sure that Tim isn’t a psycho who goes around shooting civilians. The woman on the roof—she’d been suspicious. It’s been three weeks since he’d fired the shot and nearly been shot himself, but just thinking about her makes his stomach cringe. It’s the little girl he remembers most pointedly, though. 

“Baby killer,” someone says when he walks by. It’s some replacement, fresh from the States, who’s heard from a friend who heard from a friend. It’s the kind of thing that Tim doesn’t have to respond to. He’s not some FNG, he’s a goddamn sniper in the rangers. Some stupid little shit who mostly likely delivers the general’s laundry isn’t worth a reaction.

Still, when he’s alone, _baby killer_ stings a little. “Sticks and stones,” he mumbles, and ducks into a tent. He wants some chow, and he’s heard it’s hot and good tonight. Sometimes over chow, they lick their wounds by telling stories. It’s all loud talk--they don’t say much, but it keeps the replacements hooked. Tim doesn’t tell any stories though. People don’t want to hear the stories he wants to tell, just the stories about him.

“Why the hell they call you _Titanium_?” some little shit asks.

“Aw shit, now that’s a good story!” Brick leans forward, places his shoulder between Tim and the FNG, and it’s protective and brotherly, and it allows Tim to sink back in the shadows and listen, where he’s most comfortable. “Titanium Tim, here, now there’s a lucky motherfucker.” 

That’s how the days all go. Stories in the evening, a few beers if they’re lucky. Three beautiful days in the rear, and pretty soon, replacements are calling him Titanium like they’ve been there, and Tim doesn’t mind, much. It’s actually better than ‘freaky fuckin’ sniper’ which he’d been convinced was never going to die off. 

So it’s three beautiful days of fucking around with new guys and eating hot food and shitting in actual toilets. And then it’s some training, to make sure no one gets fat or lazy, like that’s an option—like it’s even a possibility. And then it’s two bullets in the shoulder. 

“You’re not running fast enough! Are you rangers or are you pussies? Are you getting comfortable back here, men? Would you like to lie down and take a nap? Move, move, _move_.”

Brick runs next to him. They’ve been running for what feels like hours. Tim’s thinking about anything but the sand under his feet that slides and shifts like it’s liquid. He thinks of Kentucky, he thinks of the parts of his rifle, he thinks of the way the sun looks when it’s rising just barely over the tops of some dark blue hills, when it’s early in the morning and he’s always surprised to find himself awake. He thinks of his girlfriend, with the soft red curls, who is no longer his girlfriend. It’s a sad fact of war: soldiers get dumped. He did. Brick did. 

“Do you need a reason to move? Let’s give them a reason to move! Stoneheart!” 

Tim thinks that Stoneheart is one of the least creative last names he’s ever heard, and he’ll never be able to figure out why the goddamn CO called for an FNG to fire over the running men’s heads as “encouragement.” He will, however, remember the strange, tangible details of the moment.

The way the sand shifts under his feet, and he almost falls, like the ground is trying to save him. 

The sound Brick makes, a sort of garbled shout that resembles the way he says “Shhiiiiiiiiiit” but at a yell.

The brightness of the sun.

The feeling that he’s been punched in the back, _onetwo_. 

And then, horrifically, the realization that he’s been shot on a training exercise by some over eager goddamn replacement, firing at his buddies, the ones who run on stupid training exercises, with a goddamn _machine gun_.

“Shit,” Tim says, blinking up at Brick in shock. And then he passes out.

~

There’s more to war than that, just like there’s more to peace than this, but Tim stops his stories there. These are stories he’s never told. These are the fragments of his memory that seem to blend into one another, like they don’t ever start or stop. It reminds him of a story he’d read once. A girlfriend had given it to him after the war. “How to Tell a True War Story” it said, and Tim thinks, as he’s lying in this hospital bed, looking at the sun rise and listening to Raylan breathe, that he’s glad he read that story. It helped. 

“I uh,” Raylan says, his head tipped to the side. “Didn’t know you went through that shit.”

For Raylan, the comment is surprisingly inarticulate, and also strangely sensitive. Tim stares at the ceiling and offers up a smile, “Congratulations, Raylan Givens,” he says, “You’re the second Fuckin’ New Guy to get me shot.”

That makes Raylan laugh, and it softens the harsh chill of whatever the fuck had settled over the room while Tim told his war stories. He’s not sure he should’ve told them, but they’re out in the open now, a sort of secret that’s less alive when it’s been shared. Tim hasn’t heard from Brick since they left Afghanistan. Tim’s in Kentucky now. He’s a marshal now. He’s not in some desert, but he’s still getting shot at, and he misses the old luck of being Titanium.

Still, _still_ , this is a new life. And war, like peace, is about so much more than war. There’s the sand, and the crystal blue sky, and Brick cornering him on the outskirts of a village, and the feeling of dry heaving on a rooftop next to something that used to be a person. There are stars that still have names, names that Tim will carry with him like he carries his badge. At the end of the day, Tim will always be Titanium, just like he’ll always be a freaky fuckin’ sniper, just like he’ll always be the kid he was before he was anything else.

War, and war stories, are about the layers. Tim’s pulled a few back, exposed them to Raylan. The sun rises, the clock says 8am, and Raylan leaves the room to call Boyd Crowder. “Fire away,” Tim says to the empty room, and makes a gun sound with his mouth.

The hospital room is still and silent in reply.

Tim finally falls asleep.


End file.
